At Home with Long John Silver
My mother told me
to never suffer fools.
“Never suffer fools” she’d say
and she hit me round the head.
I had an intolerable
migraine that stopped me
getting out of bed.
“Never suffer fools” she said.
She’d look them in the eyes
and she’d tell them “You’re a idiot”
Just like that, she’d look them
in the face – she wasn’t messing.
My friends came and she
told them they were idiots too,
though they were all
at grammar school.
She’d keep telling them
how much she loved me.
She’d run her fingers
through my loveable mop.
She’d tell anyone listening
I had a good brain on me.
She’d also been given
to wearing a pirate hat.
Philip Foster is a founder member of The Albert Poets in Huddersfield. His first book was Goose Jazz and most recently, The Book of Occupational Hazard was published by Calder Valley Poets.